But I thought we could get along, develop a kind of working relationship. You’d learn from your mistakes, mature. I’d learn to be more patient, more forgiving. I was wrong.

The final straw was this story, about how your employees asked a lactating mother to prove her breast pump was real. She had to go into a public restroom and pump her breasts in front of strangers.

Seriously.

I doubt that GeekMoms really need me to enumerate the ways (oh, let me count them!) that this is wrong for nursing mothers everywhere. We get that, when possible, breastfeeding is ideal for mom and baby. We know society doesn’t offer enough support for the nursing mother, asking her to cover up and feed her baby in public restrooms. We recognize pumping is a private activity, and moms should have a private space in which to do it.

But could I spend just a moment to point out how fundamentally stupid this was from a security point of view? Do you not get that she could have just mixed up a little formula and put it in the bottles? Or purchased some cow’s milk and poured that in? Grabbed a little creamer from the condiment stand at the Starbucks kiosk? That unless your agent stood there, and watched the pump attach to the nipple and then watched the milk flow out and into the bottle, there was no way to know if that liquid in the bottles she produced actually was proof that the pump was what she said it was?

Yeah, I know. You’ve released a statement saying that you “‘accept responsibility” for the “apparent misunderstanding” and the “inconvenience or embarrassment” you “may” have caused her. News flash, TSA. That’s like saying I’m sorry if I hurt you. If you mean it, say it. “I’m sorry I hurt you” goes a lot further. I also know about your “new” procedure for the elderly, which is another piece of PR spin that I’m just not buying.

And while we’re chatting, you know, just the two of us, can I ask about the complaint that I recently filed with you? About how an agent did a little dance move to mock me? And the supervisor threatened me? And the pat-down agent touched my lower genitals? Because so far, I have received four emails saying that you can’t respond to my inquiry and one email saying that you have concluded that your personnel followed standard operating procedures in my screening. Yo. I disagree.

In the meantime, I hope we do get passenger advocates. I also hope, though, that Senator Charles Schumer (D-New York) realizes that having TSA employees do the job will never work. If they could stop themselves from abusing passengers, they would have already done it.

When I was pregnant with my daughter, my husband and I decided that I was going to try to breastfeed. Our decision was purely economic as we knew that formula was very expensive and breastfeeding was free. When my daughter was born, she latched on in the recovery room and I was able to breastfeed without any issues.

Those first months of her life, she would nurse a lot while I surfed the internet. I kept reading more and more things about how nursing moms were harassed in public for nursing, even though it is perfectly legal. With the advent of social media, nursing moms would use Facebook to help organize nurse-ins, which are protests where a group of moms gather and nurse their babies in public.

But then Facebook started taking down pictures of nursing babies. My daughter was very small when this started happening because I remember reading about the outrage of fellow nursing moms. There was even a movement that asked breastfeeding moms to change their profile picture to one of their baby nursing. I did this, but my picture was never taken down and has sat in its own folder, Nursing, on Facebook for all these years.

Since my daughter weaned a little less than a year ago, I haven’t been following the breastfeeding news as much. But recently a c|net article talked about how Facebook is still removing pictures of nursing babies. Facebook has said that the reason they are taking down nursing pictures is because of the amount of teenage Facebook users. I personally think this is pretty weak excuse since most nursing pictures show less boob than a low-cut shirt or dress.

You can read the article at c|net’s website. What do you all think about Facebook removing nursing baby pictures?

My daughter has been traveling a lot since she was born because we don’t live near family. So she has been taking car trips since she was very young. She’s a very good car traveler which makes things easier for us, especially when we are driving back home to Michigan from North Carolina.

But I had been stressing out because she and I were going to be flying to Texas for my cousin’s wedding. I knew that there was going to be a lot of walking, waiting, sitting and I wasn’t sure how she was going to handle it.

She had flown once before when she was 11 months old for another cousin’s wedding. But she was nursing then, so I just nursed her to sleep on the flight. It was super easy. Toddlers are generally not easy, so I was worried.

I shouldn’t have been though, as she did great. She was happy to roll her very own suitcase through the airport. During the waits in the airport, she would play nicely and color without making a ruckus.

On the plane, she ate the Milk Duds I offered in order to keep her ears from popping on take off. On the flight there, she colored and played with stickers from the special goody bag I had made up. On the flight back, she fell asleep on me for most of the flight.

Apparently, I had nothing to worry about since my child is apparently a great traveler. How does your toddler handle traveling – either by car or by plane?

When my daughter was a newborn, and nursing what seemed to be all the time, I had a hard time not being bored out of my mind. During the day, it wasn’t as much of a problem because I had the TV and computer to keep me amused.

At night, especially when she woke up in the middle of the night for an hour long (or more) nursing session, I’d feel like I was going insane. I had one of those pillows that let me sit up in bed, and my daughter slept in a pack & play next to our bed.

I would look enviously at my husband as he slept without hearing our baby cry, while I’d get up to nurse. I was fairly comfortable in bed, but I didn’t want to fall asleep so I was just sitting there staring at the walls.

I really don’t remember how I came across audio books, but I do remember it was a godsend. I started with the Harry Potter audio books, which are wonderful, and expanded my audio library from there. It was wonderful because my mind was able to be engaged while my daughter nursed at night.

Now that she is 2 1/2 years old, I don’t listen to audio books as much. I do when I’m putting her down for her nap and at bedtime. But it takes me longer to get through an audio book now since she does sleep through the night.

I’d recommend audio books for any new mom – there are lots of geeky books to choose from and can be put on an MP3 player. I know that these really helped save my sanity in the early days of my daughter’s life.